Piccolo Is Black: A Memoir of Race, Religion, and Pop Culture

by Jordan Calhoun

Like most Black kids who grew up without diverse representation, Jordan Calhoun learned the skill of assigning race to fictional characters. Piccolo, Panthro, Demona, Ursula...he could recognize a Black character when he saw one. He lived in an all-Black city, went to an all-Black school, and could identify characters whose struggles informed his understanding of the Black experience in America.

Piccolo Is Black: A Memoir of Race, Religion, and Pop Culture chronicles Calhoun’s journey from his childhood in Detroit, Michigan as a Seventh-day Adventist to being transferred to private, predominantly white, deeply religious, Seventh-day Adventist schools. He tells his story through the lens of the pop culture he loved and the common adaptations he made while navigating his religious, non-religious, and racial identities.

Calhoun reminds us that entertainment has value in forming our identities, and that we have something to gain by looking back at our childhood entertainment and pop culture experiences. Part homage to the characters he identified with and loved, part celebration of the pop culture—television, movies, music, video games—that influenced his childhood, Piccolo Is Black: A Memoir of Race, Religion, and Pop Culture is an honest, thought-provoking, and often hilarious coming-of-age memoir that celebrates Black identity in America.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography Memoir, Autobiography, Pop Culture

219 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 26, 2022

Reviews

[Omar Holmon · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you're writing a memoir, then you need a thread througout the story that will keep readers engaged. Without that thread, you could still have a good memoir but not a memorable one. Jordan Calhoun's book Piccolo is Black' is not only a great memoir, more importantly it is a memorable one. The biggest appeal to me is that Jordan Calhoun gives us his accounts of growing up in a religious household (as well as his later struggle with this), his family structure, and how pop culture helped him navigate through social norms and race issues. As the narrator of this story, Jordan does a great job of not taking any liberties with the events of his childhood. He gives the reader true feedback from the point of view from his teenage years. There's moments where you hope he takes certain actions but he does not because this is real life and things always go how you wish they would.

There's a heavy influence of pop culture and comic books which Jordan explains hillariously for those who may not be familiar. Those that are familiar with the cartoon, slang, or story that Jordan explains can still be engaged as his retelling is like a friend giving a breakdown with humurous spark notes. There are times where you'll wish he had continued with the explanation because it's so engaging. As someone that grew up in a single parent hosuehold, I couldn't help but compare experiences reading this memoir. I think that will happen for every reader regardless of what childhood home life you had. I don't want to spoil the mood of the book by telling you the type of themes that run through them but just know Jordan expresses real issues.

Jordan Calhoun is legit telling it all bout what he went through in his family but still finds ways to keep the humor in the matter with his dealing with puberty. This is a book that will make you hurt and laugh. If a book can give you both those types of reactions then the writer has done not only a good job but a great and memorable job.

[D.S.G. Burke · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book that reaches straight into your chest. First, to rifle around as if it is unsure what to rip out. You're laughing with relief and some residual fear. But just when you think you've survived, the story plunges in again to pull out your entire heart along with an aorta segment or two.

One part hilarious pop culture essays, two parts the very relatable struggle to be seen for who you really are. Jordan fluidly pairs traumatic childhood experiences with an entertainment counterpart and he does so with piercing honesty and vulnerability. He forces you to take the escapism of Millennial youth--video games, after-school television, cartoons, and comic books--seriously, because they contributed to our upbringing. Examining the few instances that turn of the century pop culture depicted race, it's impossible to ignore how white most of it was. As such, I didn't notice really. Jordan sure did. And it shaped how he saw the world from a very young age.

Also, I would sign up to read his retellings of every Bible story out there. In Jordan's version, David and Goliath shout the F word at each other.

[Peyton Barish · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was introduced to Mr. Calhoun’s writing via The Atlantic and it has turned into a bright spot in my week to read his always thoughtful newsletter. This memoir was no different, as someone who reads this very much as an outsider, despite my self-proclaimed nerdiness, this memoir contains a multitude of beautiful insights into a world I do not inhabit. It’s a credit to his writing style and voice that he makes you feel every emotion he felt during adolescence even when you shouldn’t be able to comprehend some of those experiences. The fact that he leaves the memoir on somewhat of a cliffhanger makes me excited that he’ll return with another insightful collection of stories.

[Fawnkotrba · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jordan Calhoun’s debut memoir moved me to both tears and laughter. His bravely vulnerable essays about searching for one’s identity are at once deeply personal and yet universal. Calhoun navigates the heavy topics of race and religion (often humorously) unflinchingly and occasionally optimistically. “Piccolo is Black” is a unique perspective on experiences shared by many, at the same time being accessible and enlightening for those who have not experienced similar events. Interspersed with call-backs to pop culture touchstones and obscure nerd trivia, “Piccolo” is fun to read and deeply thought-provoking. A must-read for anyone who is “other” in a culture intended for those who are “same”.

[Sonia Maninder · Rating 5 out of 5]

You know when you leave one book for another book, and commit reader adultery, it’s gotta be for something good.

Context.

I started reading Piccolo Is Black after being a few chapters into a celebrity memoir I had on order for months. Albeit, a few chapters in, I felt less compelled. The book I was reading hadn’t captured what I was looking for in a memoir. I spotted Jordan’s book on the shelf of my sister’s NY apartment and she pointed it out to me. I proceeded to read the blurb on the back and that’s when I made the call - it was time for a memoir of race, religion and pop culture - because what a combination.

Can’t say I was disappointed with this pivot. A few chapters into Jordan’s book, I found it an easy and interesting read. The style of writing is descriptive enough that even if you aren’t a full-blown nerd you can still envision the feelings, attachment that Jordan had to nerd culture. Not to mention his emotive tie to how this culture intersected with his religious upbringing.

I learnt new perspectives while chuckling to myself in the humour weaved throughout from Jordan’s perspective. (Cause we all love a bit of humour to break up trauma right? 🥲) Really though, reading from Jordan’s point of view via his style of writing is engaging, adventurous (not to be confused with Adventist 😅) and most of all BLATANTLY honest. So if you love some real talk and real experience in your life, this book provides it all.

Order it ASAP!

[Campbell MacGillivray · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am neither black, nor religious. But I was a nerd growing up, and I find Jordan's ability to use his connection to pop culture to communicate to a wider audience and bring us into his world to be inspiring, in all its beautiful, ugly honesty. Multiple times, I recognised a reference or remembered something I had almost forgotten (Beast Wars!), and it made me think hard about how the media we experience shape us and define our hopes and expectations of what people can be. Along the way, my heart bled for some of the hardship and strictures of his life growing up. But Jordan has an amazing talent for finding the aspirational possibility in life, and I am very happy for his success in the field that shaped his life. Hoping that he'll follow it up with a memoir of his college years!

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked this book up after reading Jordan's excellent column in the Atlantic about the same topic. The subject material in this book details all of the worst parts of growing up, which made me feel a horrible sense of vicarious embarrassment and sadness, but the writing is so good that I struggled to put it down. If I had known it would be a book mainly about going through puberty and having your stepdad try to sabotage your life, I'm not sure I would have picked it up. Still, it's a great read. Excellent, but also difficult for me personally.

[Isaiah Colbert · Rating 5 out of 5]

An exceptional memoir that encapsulates how black-coded characters in popular fiction helped shaped the worldview of many young Black Americans.

[dot matrices · Rating 2 out of 5]

picked this up on a whim in nyc because the title suggested to me that it would meaningfully examine anime and nerd culture's relationship with black identity. it is actually just the story of one guy's life with occasional references to media he watched in his formative years and digressions about his relationship with his stepdad, the seventh day adventists, and masturbation guilt.

there was maybe a version of this that could have worked - one that actually weaved a thematic throughline through the stories of various shows, movies, and games and specifically tied them to events in his life. as it stands, the title is really misleading. it has an extremely surface-level analysis of the racial subtext of dragon ball or any of the media that he mentions actually watching. there was so much that could have been discussed - the genocide of the namekians and the way their struggle echoes colonial subjugation, the pivotal role that working-class black and latino communities had in the early fgc, the large-scale cultural exchange between black american culture and japanese media that dominated the early 90s and early 2000s - and all of this is only alluded to, if it's mentioned at all.

it seems like the author would have been better served just marketing the book as an account of his experience with the seventh day adventists. it would certainly have been a much more honest way to present it.

[Tony Tran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Funny, poignant, and occasionally oh-so-heartbreaking, Piccolo Is Black is a stellar debut memoir from a very talented writer about race, religion, and pop culture. Jordan effortlessly weaves in foundational and pivotal moments of his life in between some of the most sizzling cultural critiques I've read in a minute. It made me want to simultaneously want to pull up old episodes of Pokemon or Recess and call my brother to tell him I loved him at the same time. Highly recommend.

[Kristy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found myself connecting to much of the religion and pop culture experiences that Jordan Calhoun shared. I appreciated his openness and could see with new eyes how difficult it must have been for my Black classmates in our predominately white small SDA church school and then boarding school to navigate so much white space including my own ignorance of it. Thank you Jordan.

[G Flores · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m not much into biographies or memoirs, but with a title like Piccolo is Black, I couldn’t help but feel there were further truths to glean from this particular author’s story.

Calhoun is eminently relatable to me personally in that much like myself, he was raised by TV. This is a common thing to say for persons who grew up in single parent households or moved around a lot or whose parents simply didn’t have a lot of time for them growing up, but Calhoun speaks a further truth about what that means that either few people felt or few people are willing to talk about: that the media we consumed wasn’t simply something we enjoyed, but that it actively informed the way we viewed the world, the way we interacted with it; it shaped our opinions of what is good or bad and why, the kind of person we wanted to be, and come to terms with who we are.

The lovely thing is that this might sound very navel-gazey or high-minded, but Calhoun is frank and matter of fact, interspersing the race, religion and pop culture promised in the subtitle of the book generously throughout. If you are not a person of color, religious or consumed 90s media, you will still find plenty to relate to as Calhoun paints his pictures vividly and entertainingly. His friend Carlos speaking about a Puerto Rican boxer as a white peer says “no one know who that is” and Carlos’ response “no, YOU don’t know who that is, because you’re STUPID” was a particular highlight for me. As people of color, we are expected to know all of white culture in addition to our own and that exchange really highlights something I’ve felt so often in my life - I am not weird because I know who Vicente Fernandez is; YOU are ignorant for not knowing El Rey, and it felt good to finally hear someone say it (even if I prefer the more apt and less severe “ignorant” over an irate teenager’s preferred “stupid”).

Ultimately, Calhoun just sorta speaks truthfully and you’re with him every step of the way. I am not black, I didn’t grow up seventh day Adventist and I didn’t watch all of the shows or listen to all of the music he did growing up, but through it all, the author is speaking his truth and there was a lot to be gained from it. Piccolo is indeed black.

[Carolyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Memoir when he isn't 30 yet. This fellow has a unique set of interesting aspects in his life. He is almost always the only, or one of a very few people of color in his life. His family are Seventh Day Adventists which he is also affiliated in many ways, for example his schooling. He is utterly fascinated with cartoons, TV, films and the surrounding culture he is not participating. He takes on each new film, serial, play with such vigor that he memorizes the lines and in a sense relives the fantasy in his mind.

The main goal it seems, is to find himself, accept and let go of hindrances in some courteous manner. Included in all this is a step father that shows no regard and or respect for the young man. His mother is also treated poorly and finally it comes a time to set the record straight. Quite a delightful character. Interesting that this is his first book and this enlightens the reader to see how easy it is to be a part of a world without ever really taking on the belief.

[Clare · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read the author’s newsletter ‘Humans Being’ from the Atlantic and enjoyed it enough to read this book. As a memoir, I found his experience and commentary very interesting. The author was raised as a Seventh Day Adventist and the book explores his early experiences growing up within this tradition, in his family of origin and in different parts of Michigan. Further, his commentary on aspects of popular culture of his youth were enlightening as well as enjoyable. First actual book I’ve read (and not listened to) in a while.

[Gina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Even though "pop culture" is the last of the three mentioned in the subtitle, it was still the part that set my expectations, where I really thought it was going to be more amusing and clever. There was insight, but it doesn't feel complete and it was kind of depressing.

It was really more about the religion part, with a strong side of how stepparents can alienate parental affections. He seems to be mostly okay now, but there aren't strong connections to that process, which would be okay if it were more entertaining.

[Kali Burks-Mosier · Rating 5 out of 5]

AMAZING memoir. Calhoun expertly tells his coming of age story, weaving the influences of pop culture, his experience as a 7th Day Adventist, and family into each chapter. His memoir highlights of representation in media, and his message of validation and being enough for yourself really resonated. I gleefully read about so many shows and movies that I had also connected with. This is one I could suggest to anyone and everyone, and definitely will.

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

This has so much of what I look for in a memoir. It's an honest, vulnerable telling that makes it so natural to reflect and relate. That's all the more satisfying when Calhoun is explicit in his target audience (that I don't fit).

This book does a great job of exploring the outsider experience and how that relationship evolves with experiences. I surely also have a nostalgic soft spot for the many cartoons that were prevalent in my own childhood.

[Gabe Eggers]

A wonderful and vulnerable memoir. While dealing directly with the Black experience, the interwoven threads concerning growing up religious and its intersect with a love of pop culture definitely resonated.

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Calhoun’s perspective is gut wrenching and triumphant at the same time. Seriously rare that I’m sucked into a memoir so well.